


And the Bitter Weather

by eko (togina)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: December 1991, Gen, Light Angst, Samulet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-21 20:28:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8259566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togina/pseuds/eko
Summary: Sam's going to do it right, this Christmas. He has money saved up for the presents - but he doesn't have the first clue what to buy a man like his Dad.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I feel ridiculous putting this in the tags, so I'm warning here for expletives: both Bobby and John curse around the boys. They're single military (esque) men who mostly spend time with other men in the same illegal and dangerous profession, and I don't really buy that they would monitor their language after the kids were old enough to understand "do as I say and not as I do."
> 
> The question I had that prompted this was, "If Sam doesn't know about the hunting life until Christmas Eve 1991, how on earth does the conversation with Bobby go, when he gives Sam the 'real special' amulet to give to John?" ('Hey kid, your salesman dad could really use this necklace, trust me,' seems like it would ping Sam's suspicions.) This is supposed to more or less directly precede the Christmas flashbacks from episode 3:08, except that it sort of contradicts the beginning part of the flashback. (Oops.) Please pretend that Dean already knows Sam got a present for their dad. Title from "Good King Wenceslaus."

It was colder than a witch’s tit, according to Uncle Bobby, cold enough to freeze the brass balls off a monkey. Or the balls off a brass monkey, but Sam wasn't really sure how cold any of those things were. He did know that December in South Dakota was cold enough to freeze your eyeballs and put icicles inside your nose, waiting in the dark for the school bus to come. Sam was the youngest kid on their bus route, eight years old and in third grade — what he’d gotten of it, started once in August and again farther east in September, three schools in five months. Dean was on the same bus, despite being in middle school and not quite thirteen, though you wouldn’t know it from the way he bossed Sam around like he was older than Dad.

His big brother was in the yard, again, fiddling with the beige remains of a ’58 Plymouth Fury. Sam had heard all about the miracle of an old Fury earlier, when he’d trudged through the old snow with a thermos of hot chocolate that Uncle Bobby’d said he had to share. Dad had dumped them in Sioux Falls three weeks ago, and so far Sam had sat through an infinite number of Dean’s lectures about the twisted frame of an old Chrysler, the disassembled engine of an Edsel, and at least ten other wrecks that Dean called “old beauts”, petting their rusted carcasses like they wouldn’t cut up his palms and kill him with lockjaw.

At least Dean's obsession with the Fury made him easy to shop for. Sam caught the bus into town, on Sunday — invented a trip to the art museum, when Dean threw on his coat like he might come along — and spent three hours scouring the city for a Christmas gift, even if what his brother really needed was another tetanus shot.

He’d finally stolen a book on classic cars from the library. Sam hadn't felt too guilty: the book was layered with dust and the last stamp on the card was Aug. 1985, but Dean would still be thrilled that his boring little brother had _nicked a_ book _, Sammy, what's next, stealing some brussel sprouts?_ Sam would sweeten the deal with a few bags of candy, would have enough for Hostess cakes if he saved the allowance Uncle Bobby insisted on giving them for lugging pipes and belts and carburetors around the frozen yard. Even if Dad came for them that night and didn’t stop driving ‘til New Year’s, they had to stop for gas sometime, and candy was easy to find.

Sam bought Uncle Bobby a notebook, because the older hunter kept cursing into his phones and scribbling things down on his oil-smudged hands or on the envelopes from a tottering pile of old bills. Uncle Bobby paid _a lot_ for electricity.

He couldn’t find anything for Dad, though. When he asked Dean about it two nights later, his brother huffed and rolled his eyes, same as he had when Sam was five, in possession of his first loose tooth and his classmates' promises that the tooth fairy would come, would leave enough money for them to buy a whole new box of Lucky Charms.

“Dude, tell me you aren't going to give him another baby food jar?”

Sam jammed his red hands in his pockets and stuck out his chin, bit his lower lip so it wouldn’t wobble like a little kid’s. Last Christmas in Indiana, his class had made snow globes out of plastic figurines and baby food jars. Sam had used one of their old GI Joes, thought Dad would like the Marine marching through the fake snow. “That’s cute, Sammy,” Dad had said, smiling when he tore it out of the brown bag Sam had pulled off Dad’s bottle and taped closed.

They’d been eating Christmas dinner at a diner, like they always did, Sam swapping his green beans for Dean’s creamed spinach, both of them drowning everything in brown gravy that tasted like salt. Dad had left the snow globe on the table, with the tip.

This year Sam would do better. He wouldn’t disappoint Dad, this year, he wouldn’t –

“Hey. Hey.” Dean’s hand was cold where it wrapped around the back of Sam’s neck, his brother’s face too close and frowning like he did when he thought Sam was about to cry. “Don’t get upset.”

“I’m not upset!” Sam snapped, tried to wrench away from his brother and failed.

“Sure you're not,” Dean replied, and Sam kicked him in the shin. “But what do you care about presents, anyway? Winchesters don’t do Christmas gifts.”

Winchesters didn’t do gifts at all, not unless it was a shotgun and a sawzall for Dean on his twelfth birthday, a weird old book in Latin for Sam from Pastor Jim. But Dean’s face had gone a little funny as he talked, blinking quick and staring hard at nothing, swallowing like he’d caught a live frog in his throat. Sam knew all of Dean’s faces: he’d practiced in the mirror, trying to chew on the same side of his bottom lip, to huff so that his cheeks blew out like a puffer fish, to smirk with one eyebrow raised and not both. Dean's expression gave him away: it proved he was thinking about the good years, the ones before Sam was born.

“Why not?” Sam demanded, pushing out his lips like Dean did when he argued with grown-ups he thought were dumb. “You had Christmas presents back in Kansas," he prodded, could see it in Dean's blinkered eyes. "I know you did!”

Dean’s grip tightened on Sam’s neck. Sam tensed, expecting to be shoved into an oil barrel or down to the ground, but Dean just shook his head. “Yeah, well, we don’t exactly have a place to put all our race car tracks and your training wheels, now do we?”

“That’s a stupid reason not to get presents,” Sam retorted, because it was. Dean would like the book, he _would_ , and they could leave it in another library when he was done so it didn’t take up any extra room. They had Legos heaped in the foot well of the Impala, Checkers and Scrabble shoved under the seat with a ball of sticky-tack to make the pieces stay while they drove, race cars lined up in a row behind their heads. They had space for a few gifts.

And Sam didn’t need _training wheels_.

“I already got your gift,” he mumbled sulkily, digging the toe of his dirty sneaker into a chunk of graying snow. Dean would probably leave the book at the next diner, same as Dad. At least Sam knew his brother would eat the candy.

“You did?” Dean reared back, tilted his head down and studied his little brother with wondering eyes.

“You don’t have to look so surprised!” Sam sniffed, wrapping his arms around his ribs and kicking harder at the ice.

Dean’s face did acrobatics that Sam couldn’t hope to mimic, slipping from eyes wide with shock to something softer, his cheeks pinking to match the tip of his nose and the edges of his ears, his brow furrowed. Then Sam blinked, and suddenly Dean was back to slanted green eyes and a lopsided smirk that Sam could perform with the accuracy of someone who’d been practicing that particular trick for years.

“Well?” his brother drawled, dropping both hands heavily onto Sam’s shoulders and shaking him hard. “What is it? What did you get me? Is it inside?”

“It’s a book,” Sam said with his own matching smirk, and Dean groaned. That would keep him from rooting through Sam’s bag, and Dean couldn’t even accuse him of lying. “But what do I get Dad?”

Dean slung an arm around Sam’s shoulders, steering them both across the darkening yard and toward the soft yellow lights of Uncle Bobby’s house. He hummed, cocked his head the way he did when he was mulling something over. Sam could do that, too; he could do it without thinking, by now, forgot all about it until teachers caught them with their heads tilted the same way and called it cute. “Well, what’d you get Uncle Bobby? They’re both hunters – uh, hunt deer and shit, they probably want the same things.”

“A notebook,” Sam whispered, because they were getting close to the front door, and Uncle Bobby had ears like a bat. “But Dad really likes the notebook he has.” Dean made a noise that might have been agreement, but he looked away when Sam tried to catch his eye. Sam frowned. There was something there, but Dean wasn’t going to tell him. Sam filed it away in his head — _Dad’s notebook —_ but he would worry about that secret when it wasn’t a week until Christmas and there weren’t more important things to do.

“He likes ammo, I guess, even if that’s _weird_ for a salesman.” Sam shrugged. Dean inhaled hard and choked on cold air and his own saliva, and Sam pounded his back as hard as he could until his brother winced and put him in a headlock, dragging him across the porch. “But no one’s gonna sell me ammo, Dean.”

“God, I hope not,” Dean muttered, giving Sam a noogie before letting him go to open the door, a rush of warm air hitting Sam’s face, almost painful against his numb fingers and frozen ears. “What about batteries for his flashlight? Or a new pen for that, um, notebook he has?”

Sam rolled his eyes — left to right, just like Dean — and elbowed his brother in the ribs. “I’m not gonna buy Dad _batteries_ for Christmas,” he declared, and Dean at least looked a little sheepish for suggesting something so dumb.

He shrugged out of his coat and then reached for Sam’s, even though Sam could take off his own coat and tie his own shoes and ride a bike without Dean holding onto the seat.

“You bought me a _book_ ,” Dean retorted, scrubbing his sleeve under his runny nose before trying to scrub it under Sam’s.

Sam leaped backward to avoid it, flailing into Bobby’s coat rack and holding both hands in front of his face. “Ewwww!” he squealed. “Snot!” He really should have known better, after living his whole life with Dean.

“Does snot _bother_ you, Sammy?” his brother wondered cheerfully, drawling ‘bother’ so that it had six syllables instead of two. He took a step forward, and Sam shoved back into the unforgiving layers of Bobby’s coats. “Do you think it’s _gross_?

“Your face is gross!” Sam howled, unable to retreat while his brother advanced. “Your –” It devolved into shrieking, then, when Dean caught Sam’s elbows and pinned his arms, grinning like the Joker in Batman. “No! No no no no nooooo!”

“C’mon, Sammy,” Dean cackled, syrupy sweet as he shoved his cold, dripping nose into Sam’s cheek. “You _love_ me.” He rubbed his nose into Sam’s cheek before pressing it to Sam’s nose, leaving a trail of snot and making Sam squirm like a fish on Dad’s line. “Eskimo kisses!” his brother announced gleefully, and Sam was screeching and laughing so hard that his eyes were watering and he couldn’t breathe.

“What are you doing to your brother?” a gruff voice hollered from the kitchen, and Dean pulled back long enough to shout, “Nothing, sir!” before digging his fingers into Sam’s ribs.

“Gonna. Pee m’pants,” Sam gasped, unable to catch his breath to giggle or coordinate his arms and legs to wriggle away. “Gonna!”

Footsteps sounded on the creaky wooden floorboards, and Dean glanced over his shoulder before straightening up and letting Sam collapse onto the floor, curling defensively to protect his vulnerable underarms and ribs.

He peered up at where Uncle Bobby had come into the hall, wiping his hands on a dishcloth and shaking his head. Uncle Bobby rolled his eyes a lot, too, just like Dean. “You boys ready for dinner?” he asked, then glanced down at Sam and wrinkled his nose. “Christ Sammy, you’ve got boogers all over your face. Go clean up.”

Sam let out an indignant shriek, but Dean clapped a hand over his mouth before he could put the blame where it belonged. Sam sucked saliva out of his cheeks and licked it all onto Dean’s hand, tried to snap his teeth shut on the skin of Dean's palm.

“We’re going right now, sir,” Dean declared, blinking innocently, and Uncle Bobby let out a disbelieving snort.

“Gonna scrub all your grossness off my face,” Sam declared as soon as Uncle Bobby walked away and Dean let him go, sticking out his tongue when his brother turned to look. “You probably have cooties.”

Dean laughed, smacked his shoulder, and Sam grinned (just like his brother did, had sucked his thumb when his front teeth came in to get the overbite so he could smile the same way).

“Only girls have cooties, Sammy,” Dean said sagely, hauling Sam to his feet and jostling him into the wall as they raced up the stairs. “Everyone knows that.”

“Yeah?” Sam answered, tensing muscles cramped from laughing and getting ready to run. “Explains why _you’d_ have them, then.” He shouted the last part over his shoulder, and by the time Dean made it to the top of the stairs Sam had catapulted into the bathroom and locked the door.

 

After dinner, Uncle Bobby got a phone call from someone that called him Deputy Director, and left Dean and Sam to put away the extra servings of beef stew and wash out their bowls. Sam washed and Dean dried, because Dean liked to gesture when he talked, and last week he’d caught Uncle Bobby in the face with a mug full of soapy water and cracked two plates when they’d slipped out of his gesticulating hands.

“You should talk to Uncle Bobby,” Dean said, and Sam said, “Huh?” because a second before that Dean had been trying to waltz Sam around the room while belting out “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” louder than the staticky radio he’d rebuilt during the blizzard their first week in Sioux Falls.

“Talk to Uncle Bobby about what?” Sam elaborated, cocking his head and frowning up at Dean.

“You know.” Dean hit him with the damp dish towel and huffed out an impatient sigh. “About Dad.”

“What about me?”

Sam grabbed the knife out of the dish drainer and dropped back behind Dean, who’d gone for the gun Bobby kept on the windowsill over the sink. Then Sam looked at the open kitchen door, and relaxed.

“It’s Dad,” he exhaled into Dean’s shoulder, his fingers still white around the knife. He could feel Dean slump backwards as he realized who was standing in the doorway and stamping the fresh snow off his boots, and his brother’s weight made Sam stumble and grunt. “Get off me, you fat blueberry,” he mumbled, and felt Dean’s body shake when he laughed.

“You're an oompa loompa,” Dean retorted, before squaring his shoulders and resting his hands behind his back. Sam stepped up next to him, standing straight, but he held onto the knife. “We weren’t expecting you back until next week, sir,” his brother said, because Dean was better than Sam at not blurting out all his questions at once.

Dad brushed the snow off his coat and waved a dismissive hand at the question Dean hadn’t asked. “Finished early,” he declared, then turned around and stared hard at them both. _Finished what?_ Sam wanted to know, but he knew better than to open his mouth. “It’s a good thing, too, if you boys are starting to talk to Bobby about me.”

Dad stared at them without blinking, dark eyes severe, and Dean tensed. Sam leaped to his brother’s defense. “We weren’t –” he started, throwing his hands up, then trailed off when their father grinned at the kitchen knife still held tightly in his fist.

“You got plans for that knife, Sammy?” he inquired, and chuckled at Sam’s blush. “Why don’t you put it down, then, and come give your old man a hug.” Floorboards creaked behind them, and Sam and Dean both looked back to see Uncle Bobby step into the room, nodding to their dad. “Give Bobby a hug, while you’re at it. We’ll head out tonight, before we’re snowed in.”

Sam pursed his lips and stared helplessly at Dean from the other side of their dad’s waist. How was he supposed to find a present now?

 

Uncle Bobby managed to persuade their dad to stay until the next afternoon, when school let out for Christmas. If John couldn’t handle a little snow, Uncle Bobby said, then he should have gone hunting in the Florida Keys. Besides, Bobby was planning on making waffles for breakfast. Sam and Dean glanced at each other from the corners of their eyes: they’d had cereal every morning before school, and Uncle Bobby hadn’t said a thing about swapping cold milk and Coco Puffs for maple syrup and the waffle iron, but everybody knew John Winchester had a weakness for Uncle Bobby’s waffles.

Still, Sam had figured it was best to catch his uncle before bed, just in case Dad changed his mind about breakfast, tossed them into the car in their pjs and outraced the sun. It wouldn’t be the first time Sam had gone to sleep on a bed, curled next to Dean’s sprawl, and woken up listening to his brother’s snores and the hum of the highway under his ear, miles from where they’d been.

He brushed his teeth and gargled the mouthwash, competing with Dean to shoot it from the gap between their front teeth into the sink. He’d missed the sink, but he’d hit his brother in the face, and that was even better than winning the game.

Unfortunately, when Sam crept down the hall in his wool socks to Bobby’s bedroom, it was empty. He peered around the banister, down the stairs, and caught a glimpse of his uncle reaching for an open bottle of whiskey, could hear his dad’s low laugh farther in the room.

He spun around and waved both arms frantically down the dark hall, because Sam knew his brother would be standing outside their room, pretending he wasn’t about to follow Sam to Uncle Bobby’s room and listen in.

“He’s down there with _Dad_!” Sam hissed loudly at a dark shape that might have been Dean. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“Stop being so spastic!” Dean hissed back, grabbing Sam’s wrist before Sam could knock an elbow into his head. “I’ll go down and distract Dad. You – I don’t know, tell Uncle Bobby you wet the bed, or something, and need new sheets.”

“I don’t wet the –” But Dean was already clattering down the stairs in his own too-big flannel pajamas, slipping on the first step before deciding to slide down the banister instead.

“I don’t wet the bed,” Sam whispered peevishly, but he sighed and followed his brother down the stairs.

Dean had caught their dad’s attention before Sam hit the floor — Dean was good at that, talked about things that Dad liked, cars and guns and baseball instead of the spring play at school — and Sam tiptoed over to his uncle’s chair, tugged on his sleeve and tried to stay out of their dad’s line of sight.

“Uncle Bobby?”

Bobby jumped and jerked his head around, groaning when he saw Sam. “Jesus, you little grub. You move like a goddamned ghost.”

Sam hunched his shoulders up to his ears and crossed his arms. Dad told him not to be stupid, when Sam asked about monsters, but Pastor Jim believed in the Bible, with its witches and beasts, and Uncle Bobby had an awful lot of books with scary pictures, and always talked like the monsters were waiting just outside the door. Sometimes Sam had nightmares, about people with funny eyes and black capes without faces and Dean’s own face white behind the barrel of a gun. But he _didn’t_ wet the bed.

“Can I talk to you?” he asked, shaking off the goosebumps he got when he thought about the dreams. Uncle Bobby raised an eyebrow and stared. “Um. Not in here,” Sam whispered, casting a furtive glance at his dad and brother on the couch.

“Christ,” Uncle Bobby swore, but he stood up and herded Sam toward the kitchen. “Getting cigars!” he called over his shoulder. “Might take me awhile to dig ‘em out, so you’d better be damned grateful, Winchester.”

“I’ve got plenty of matches,” Sam’s dad shot back, laughing like he’d just told Uncle Bobby a joke. “And brew some coffee, Singer. Your old bones will need it to stay awake while I tell you about this hunt. Hell of a story.”

“I’m not your goddamned maid,” Uncle Bobby grumbled, but he wandered over to the old coffee maker and started measuring out grounds. “All right, kid,” he said, rinsing the last of the old coffee into the sink and staring Sam down. “What’s got your panties in a twist?”

“Ineedapresentfordad,” Sam admitted to the tops of his feet.

Uncle Bobby coughed. “You want to try that again?” he wondered. “In English this time?”

Sam’s shoulders drooped. “I have Christmas presents for everyone else,” he said, scuffing his sock over a gap in the floorboards and catching it on a splinter. “But I don’t know what to get Dad.” He lifted his head and found that he’d gotten his uncle’s full attention, floundered under Uncle Bobby's penetrating gaze. “Um. Dean said batteries, but that’s dumb, no one gets batteries on Christmas. Maybe ammo? You have extra ammo, right?”

The coffee maker rumbled to life with a gurgle and a belch of steam that sounded kind of like the noise Uncle Bobby made, pulling his cap off to scratch his head and then settling it back down. “Son, you want me to give you rounds of ammunition so that you can, what, wrap it in tinsel and put it under the tree?”

Uncle Bobby wouldn’t do very well in third grade. Mrs. Applebaum didn’t like sarcasm.

“Don’t be stupid,” Sam muttered, biting his lip when Uncle Bobby glowered at him, could practically hear his uncle warning him to mind his tongue. “We won’t have a tree. I’d just give it to him at dinner, you know, after the waitress leaves.”

“Jesus, Winchester, you’re a real jackass sometimes,” Uncle Bobby told the coffee maker angrily, but Sam didn’t think Bobby was talking to him. Then he walked over to the kitchen table, dropped into a chair and gestured at Sam to take a seat.

“Son, I’m not gonna give you ammunition to carry around in your pocket and hand over to your old man in the middle of a damned restaurant,” he said gravely, leaning toward Sam.

Sam felt his chin pull in, and clenched his jaw so it didn’t shake, blinked quick like Dean did when his eyes got too bright, because only babies cried when things didn't go their way. “Oh.” He ducked away from Uncle Bobby’s gaze and dug his pinky into the hole in his pajama bottoms, just over the knee. “Okay. It was a dumb idea, anyway.”

“Oh for –” Uncle Bobby huffed and stood back up. Sam stood up, too; he might as well get Dean and go to bed, and it’s not like Dad wanted a present from Sam, probably wouldn’t even have wanted the ammo. Maybe Dean was right about the batteries. Dean always knew what Dad liked. “Sit back down, Sam. I’ve got something you can give your daddy, just stay put while I go find it.”

Uncle Bobby trundled down the stairs to the basement without glancing back at Sam, who dug his fingers into his ears to make sure he'd heard right. Uncle Bobby  _had something for Dad_. If he did, if he meant it, maybe this year they could have Christmas after all. Sam nearly knocked over his chair dancing from foot to foot with his hands clasped, chewing on his bottom lip, waiting for his uncle to return.

“What’s taking so long, Singer?” Sam’s dad yelled from the other room. “You going to Cuba for those cigars?”

Sam spun around, excitement giving way to fear that Dad had overheard, but there was only Dean standing in the doorway watching Sam. Dean grinned, and Sam felt like he might bounce right off the floor when Dean gave him a discreet thumbs up, his big brother’s seal of approval for Uncle Bobby’s plan.

“I heard!” Dean whispered. “Don’t worry, I’ve got Dad handled.” Then he turned around and headed back to the living room. “Uncle Bobby’s making Sammy a cup of hot milk,” he lied, raising his voice so Sam could hear. “But I think they’re playing Sunday’s game on channel thirty-six. You should see what the Vikings pulled off in the third quarter, Dad. It’s like Pastor Jim prayed for a miracle.”

The TV crackled to life, and Sam could hear Dean fiddling with the old rabbit ears to get a picture that didn’t flicker red and green. Then Uncle Bobby was coming up the stairs and Sam raced to meet him.

“Calm down, calm down. Jesus, squirt, if you push me down the stairs ain’t nobody having Christmas.”

Sam hopped backwards out of Bobby’s way. “What is it?” he demanded, staring at the small black bag in his uncle’s hands. Then he had a horrible thought. “. . . It’s not batteries, is it?”

“Do I look like your idiot brother?” Uncle Bobby groused, and Sam decided the polite answer would be to shake his head no, even if sometimes Bobby and Dean were hard to tell apart under all the black car gunk on their faces and rolling their eyes. “It’s an amulet,” he told Sam, handing over the bag. “It’s for protection.”

“What’s an amulet?” Sam asked, but he was already shaking the present out of the bag, thin leather cord and strange, golden face knocking into his palm. He couldn’t help the sigh that escaped his mouth when it rested in his hand. “It’s a _necklace_?” He drooped back into his chair, frowning at the small, horned head. “Dad’s not gonna want a necklace, Uncle Bobby. He wouldn’t wear the noodle one we made in first grade.”

Uncle Bobby laughed, which Sam thought was kind of mean, since he’d just ruined Sam’s last shot at not disappointing his dad.

He ruffled Sam’s hair, then squatted down and grabbed Sam’s chin so he had to look Bobby in the eye. “It’s not just a necklace,” he said seriously, plucking it out of Sam’s hand and dangling it so that the shiny, fierce charm caught the light. “It’s more important than that. This will help keep your dad safe. Maybe keep him around a little longer,” Uncle Bobby said, quieter, and Sam nearly laughed himself. No funny-looking metal head was going to keep their dad from running off as soon as he’d dropped them in the nearest motel.

“Safe from what?” Sam wondered, stretching out his fingers to rub over the worn edges of the charm. It wasn’t a bad necklace for a boy to wear, though Sam doubted that John Winchester thought any jewelry was good for boys, the way he’d yelled last month when Dean had wanted to pierce his ear. “Other salesmen?”

“Of all the cockamamie bullshit stories –” Uncle Bobby took a deep breath and tugged on the brim of his hat before starting over.

“Your daddy spends a lot of time hunting at night,” he said, voice low and cheek twitching like it had when Dean had accidentally dropped the engine out of Bobby’s favorite corvette. Sam nodded. That was true; Dad said he did his best hunting at night. “And there are a lot of dangerous things on a hunt,” Uncle Bobby explained, settling the necklace back into Sam’s smaller hand. “Especially after dark.”

Sam stared dubiously at the lopsided, horned little head and the coil of the leather cord. Dad always laughed, when Sam worried about him being outside at night, told him not to act like a baby when Sam tried to keep the light on in the bathroom so it wouldn’t get too dark. If Sam offered him a protective necklace, he’d probably just think Sam was being a crybaby again, or a girl.

“Trust me, squirt,” Uncle Bobby said, tipping Sam’s hand so the amulet slid back into the bag. “He’ll appreciate this. Best Christmas present that idiot could get.” He folded the bag in half and tucked it into the pocket of Sam’s pajama top, then patted it against Sam’s chest.

Uncle Bobby was a grown up, like Dad. They talked on the phone a lot, and Dean had said that Uncle Bobby would know what Dad liked. So maybe it was a good gift, and Sam didn’t know any better because he didn’t know what Dad wanted besides fresh ammo and cold beer.

“Thank you,” Sam said, squeezing his pocket. It would be the best present ever, like Uncle Bobby said. Dad would be so surprised, and Dean, too, that Sam had found a gift good enough to keep.

Bobby brushed Sam’s thanks away. “Damned idiot needs all the help he can get,” he mumbled, and used Sam’s collar to haul him to his feet. “Now get on to bed, your daddy and I have things to discuss.”

“And cigars to smoke,” Sam added with a mischievous grin, hurrying out the door before Uncle Bobby could punish him for his lip. “G’night, sir!”

 

“Well?” Dean demanded, when he finally snuck into their room and crawled onto the bed, because he’d been allowed to stay downstairs until the game was over and the Vikings won. “What is it? What did Uncle Bobby give you?”

“A book,” Sam yawned into his pillow, clinging to it while Dean jostled him across the bed.

Dean pinched him. Sam yelped, and struggled to free himself from the covers and fight back.

“Come on, you brat.” Dean rolled on top of Sam and started smothering him before Sam could get untwisted from the quilt. “I know it wasn’t a book. You know you want to tell me,” he wheedled, right in Sam’s ear; and he was right, it was bursting out of Sam’s chest, perched at the tip of his tongue and he wanted to climb off the bed and pull the necklace out and see his brother’s face so he could be sure it was as good as Uncle Bobby said. But –

“It’s a surprise,” he grunted, shoving Dean off so that he could breathe. “You’ll find out next week.” Dean grumbled and rolled back onto his side of the bed, hogging his pillow and half of Sam’s. “But De’,” Sam whispered, because he couldn’t hold it in, “Uncle Bobby says it’s important. He says it’s the best present ever.”

It was quiet, for a moment, and Sam shook Dean’s elbow to make sure his brother hadn’t already fallen asleep, waiting for Dean to poke him in the stomach and make a joke about baby food snow globes or boring old books. “That’s great, Sammy,” Dean finally said, and Sam caught the gleam of his smile in the light from the hall. Dean always left the door cracked, so it didn’t get too dark.

His brother reached out and brushed Sam’s hair back, tucked it behind his ear, and that wasn't fair, because Dean knew that put Sam right to sleep every time. “Dad’s lucky he’s got you planning Christmas.”

Sam hummed, sliding closer to Dean to keep his brother’s fingers carding through his hair. “Better’n last Christmas,” he mumbled, letting Dean tuck his cold feet under Sam’s warm ankles, because only Sam was sensible enough to wear socks. He shoved down the worry that it would be worse than last year, that Dad would be horrified by a necklace where he’d only been amused by the GI Joe. “Right?” he queried, plaintive, and Dean tugged lightly on the ends of his hair.

“It’ll be perfect,” his brother swore, and Sam let Dean’s fingertips and his promises soothe him to sleep. “Best Winchester Christmas yet.”


End file.
